1. Field
The present disclosure generally relates to carbon nanotubes, and more particularly, to systems and methods for designing and fabricating detectors using single-walled carbon nanotubes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Applications for infrared detectors and their 2-dimensional arrays have undergone a dramatic expansion over the past several decades in the areas of thermal imaging. Night vision and other military applications, spectroscopy, infrared astronomy, and failure analysis are some of the applications where infrared detectors are used.
Currently, HgCdTe is a widely used variable band gap semiconductor for infrared (IR) photodetectors. Aside from its toxicity, HgCdTe and corresponding systems have various undesirable properties. For example, processing problems can occur due to weak Hg—Te bonds, and can give rise to bulk, surface and interface instabilities that make it difficult to develop large area uniform imaging arrays. Moreover a typical HgCdTe detector operates at 77K which under certain circumstances may not be desirable.
Extrinsic doped Si detector is another type of common IR photodetector. A typical Si photodetector requires even lower temperatures (about 4.2K) for successful operation. Thus, such IR sensors (such as IR focal plane arrays (FPA)) for cryogenic imagers are typically expensive to manufacture and operate. Consequently, their uses are limited to specialized applications such as military applications.